Of late we are seeing a massive trend in the electrification of vehicles, however, the reports say despite that ICE will continue to dominate the market in the Asia Pacific, including India, write Krishna Gowdaman A (Application Engineering Specialist, India, Automotive Aftermarket Division, 3M) and Suparno Hazra (Application Engineering Manager, South APAC, Automotive Aftermarket Division, 3M)
In the report shared by Mordor Intelligence, on ‘ICE Vehicle Market Share And Trends’, it is estimated that the share will grow by CAGR 3.9 per cent between 2019-29. Despite the government’s plan of 30 per cent EV penetration by 2030, there will be a larger population of ICE vehicles coexisting in the market. Hence, it is important to understand how we can maintain the health of those engines for better performance, lesser pollution, and overall higher efficiency.
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Krishna Gowdaman
By large, automobiles are regulated by various aspects in countries, some of the key elements are emissions and safety. The emission regulations evolved and became more and more stringent. Automobile OEMs have made significant efforts to adopt these stringent regulations by including sophisticated technologies and these technologies are not entirely maintenance-free. These technologies demand regular services to sustain its fitness and in turn, deliver the overall performance of the vehicle.
If we try to generalise, four critical components
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Suparno Hazra
can affect the vehicle performance: The fuel system, the air intake system, the powertrain, and the exhaust system. The health of those systems ensures the maximum output from our vehicles.
Driving practice, traffic conditions, maintenance patterns and fuel quality lead to a buildup of deposits onto critical components like the throttle plate and body, fuel injectors, intake valves, combustion chambers and exhaust systems. The buildup of deposits affects engine performance, causing poor fuel economy, loss of horsepower, rough idling and hesitations when stepping on the acceleration pedal. These problems are often first noticed during cold start, or after driving shorter distances or driving at lower speeds. It’s vital to remove/ reduce deposits like gum, resin, and carbon aside from regular maintenance practices. Vehicle maintenance is a vast topic though; predictive maintenance needs to be exercised to keep the vehicle up and running at its best. In the vehicle routine maintenance schedule, there are various areas to check and upkeep like the power train, brake, lubrication, fuel, cooling system etc. We will be discussing on what are the key aspects to be looked upon to maintain the powertrain, fuel and exhaust system.
Ø The Fuel System
A fuel system consists of key components like fuel pumps, tanks, filters, and injectors. Except for filters, many times rest of the components are not checked or serviced until there is a need for it or a drop in performance of the vehicle and it’s related to the fuel system. Although these are designed to function well for many services. However, various factors like fuel adulteration, traffic and road conditions, and driving habits lead to gum, varnish and carbon deposits onto injectors. This may compromise spray volume, particle size and pattern of fuel getting sprayed in the combustion chamber hence leading to alteration in Air-Fuel ratio (AFR). When the AFR is altered there can be loss of power and emits excessive harmful exhaust gas. This can affect the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) value as well. So, it’s a vicious cycle and hence these deposits need to be cleaned or else there are chances that the injectors will malfunction and may need a replacement in the run. One of the good practices is to use periodically Fuel system cleaners to service them. Fuel system cleaners are small investments to better/ restore the engine performance. Professional Fuel system cleaner is focused process of running the vehicle on the cleaner itself, while the engine runs on the cleaner, the cleaner cleans the fuel system, however, if it can be done pro actively at certain intervals, it will help restore the engine performance periodically. Even if the engine is already affected the professional fuel system cleaning can be done as a reactive solution as well.
The other variety of fuel injector cleaners is those which can be added to the fuel tanks with the